Adam's Pulse

Part 29

Chapter 29

She smacked something into his palm, all while holding her daughter in the other arm.  Slator raised an eyebrow at the object before turning it in his hands.  “Are you trying to tell me I stink?”

“No,” Ally said as she rocked a fussy Jesse.  “It masks your scent.  If you’re planning to go back and forth between here and the cabin, I need to make sure you keep using it.  Amaya already made you once, but you need to make sure you use it every time.”  She shifted on her feet, something that he knew she did more for the little girl in her arms than for comfort.  “And when you’re running through the woods, always take a different route.  If you can, make sure you don’t leave any tracks whatsoever.”

His grip on the soap tightened when she stared at him with those green eyes that knew too much.  Was this how he was going to be?  Was he going to be powerful like her, or would he always be as he was, slightly afraid of what was happening around him?

“Can I tell you something?” she asked as she sat down beside him on the couch.  In her arms, Jesse lay silently, but the little girls eyes remained on Slator, and if he was being honest, he would admit to the fact that her stare was slightly uncomfortable.  With those green eyes, she reminded him too much of her mother.

Glancing up at Ally, he nodded.  “Sure.”

She glanced down at her daughter, and a large smile formed on her face.  Slator could see the complete love on the woman’s face and couldn’t help but wonder if his mother had ever looked at him like that.  His adoptive mother hadn’t, but what about his birth mother?  Had she wanted him?

“I was afraid,” she whispered as if telling him her biggest secret, and for all Slator knew, she may have been.  “I was with the pride since I could remember.  Sure, I wasn’t accepted, I didn’t belong there, but I had a home.  That was more than a lot of people could hope for.  The day that Marcus banished me was the scariest day of my life.  He sent me out into the world, one that I had only read about in textbooks, and expected me to thrive.  I traveled for months.  Sometimes, I didn’t even know what my next meal would be, but I kept on.”  She looked up at him with a warm smile.  “I met some of the best people during that time, and despite the fright I felt, despite how scared I was, I wouldn’t take back that experience for the world.  It shaped me into who I am today; it shaped my life into what it is today.”

Slator turned his eyes away from the understanding on Ally’s face.  Instead, he kept his gaze on Jesse.  The little girl blinked at him, before a small, chubby hand reached towards him.  When he looked towards Ally for permission, she only hesitated for a moment before nodding.  As carefully as he could, he eased Jesse from Ally’s arms.  Cradling the little girl, he rocked her slightly.  “Are you trying to tell me the fear will go away?”

When Slator looked up at her, he realized that Ally’s gaze wasn’t on him but her daughter.  “No.  It never goes away; it just changes forms.”  Finally, she glanced up at him.  “What I’m trying to tell you is not to fight it.  Everyone feels fear, but it’s that fear that keeps us human.  It keeps us from making some of the biggest mistakes of our lives.  Don’t forget the fear, just learn to live with it, and learn to use it to your advantage.”

“You think I can manage that?”

“I know you can,” she replied with such conviction that he was beginning to believe her words.  “Have you tried using your power yet?”

A small hand curled around his finger, making him smile down at Jesse.  When he glanced back up at Ally, Barron was hovering over her shoulder like a protective father.  Slator eyed the man, but when Barron merely sent him a bored expression and began making faces at the little boy in his arms, he turned his attention back to Ally.  “I didn’t even know I had power, using it hasn’t crossed my mind.”